Harvard-Smithsonian Women Computers Project - Annie Jump Cannon 04

About the Project

At Harvard College Observatory (now the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), women studied over 130 years of the night sky, all preserved on glass plate photographs. Women computers catalogued stars, identified variables, interpreted stellar spectra, counted galaxies, and measured distances in space. Several of them made game-changing discoveries in astronomy and astrophysics. Interested in historical women? Love astronomy? Help us transcribe the work of the Harvard Observatory's women computers and see which stars shine the brightest.

The HCO's Astronomical Photographic Plate Collection (also known as the Plate Stacks) is the world's largest archive of stellar glass plate negatives, amassing over 500,000 celestial moments captured in time. Since the 1880s, women like Williamina Fleming, Annie Jump Cannon, Henrietta Swan Leavitt, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin and Antonia Maury made their mark in astronomy (and history!) by studying these glass plates and publishing their findings with their director, Edward Pickering. See an interesting notation about a glass plate one of these brilliant scientists worked on? Tell us about it on twitter @DASCHDesk or hop on over to the DASCH Project's website (dasch.rc.fas.harvard.edu) to see if the plate has been digitized and analyze it for yourself!

To learn more about the impact of the women computers, listen to an interview with Dava Sobel about her recently released book "Glass Universe" describing their legacy.

At Harvard College Observatory (now the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), women studied over 130 years of the night sky, all preserved on glass plate photographs. Women computers catalogued stars, identified variables, interpreted stellar spectra, counted galaxies, and measured distances in space. Several of them made game-changing discoveries in astronomy and astrophysics. Interested in historical women? Love astronomy? Help us transcribe the work of the Harvard Observatory's women computers and see which stars shine the brightest. To learn more about the impact of the women computers, listen to an interview with Dava Sobel about her recently released book "Glass Universe" describing their legacy.